EAG Council Meeting Minutes

Transcription

1 EAG Council Meeting Minutes Monday 23 rd January 2012 Lyon, France Attendees: Bernard Bourdon, President Chris Ballentine, Vice-President Eric Oelkers, Past-President Christa Göpel, Treasurer Liane Benning, Secretary Bernie Wood, Goldschmidt Officer Paul Beattie, Cambridge Publications Michael Bau, Councillor Janne Blichert-Toft, Councillor Vinciane Debaille, Councillor Andrea Koschinsky, Councillor Anders Meibom, Councillor Marie-Aude Hulshoff, Business Office Manager Apologies: Bernard Marty, Goldschmidt Officer Dan Frost, Councillor/ Nominations Committee Chair Massimo Coltorti, Councillor Cristina Facchini, Councillor Amaelle Landais, Councillor The council approved the minutes of EAG Council Meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, August PART I: INITIATIVES & ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED 1.1 EAG finances Report from the Treasurer (Christa Göpel) The EAG Council approved the Treasurer s Report. The EAG currently has 1682 members. Overall, the financial situation of the EAG remains healthy but highly dependent on surplus from Goldschmidt conferences in order to pay for operating expenses Travel expenses for council meetings outside of Goldschmidt It was agreed that the EAG will reimburse all councillors expenses related to council meetings outside of Goldschmidt, though councillors are encouraged to be reasonable while arranging their travel. 1.2 EAG Council & Committees Vacant positions in committees It was agreed that: Janne Blichert-Toft would join the Nominations Committee Vinciane Debaille would join the Communications Committee Michael Bau would join the Communications Committee Anders Meibom would Chair the Program Committee

2 Eric Oelkers would Chair the Publications Committee, whose members will now be the editorial board of Geochemical Perspectives Process for nominating chairs and members of committees It was clarified that the VP will be in charge of nominating chairs and members for the various committees, nominations to be approved by the council. This will be organized in a timely manner so that the committees are fully in place before the mandate of the committee chairs and members takes effect Councillors election process / Criterias for nominees It was clarified that the critierias for selecting candidates for councillors should be field, location and gender. Action: Marie-Aude will create a document for the nominations committee on the guidelines for selecting candidates. 1.3 EAG Awards Increasing the number of award nominations The council agreed that it is the responsibility of the Award Committee Chair to sollicit nominations. Making sure the award committees are in place at the beginning of July should ensure that the chairs have sufficient time to solicit nominations. It was also suggested that the Chair could provide examples of letters of recommendations, as this could make the process easier for non-native English speakers Criteria for Gast Lecturer nominees It was agreed to pursue with the criterias for selecting the Gast Lecturer: nominees should have received their PhD at least 10 years and no more than 25 years before the award (those had been approved by Alex Halliday but the changes were never reflected in the by-laws). Action: Marie-Aude to update the by-laws. 1.4 EAG presence at EGU Sponsorship of a lecture and sessions It was agreed to award the distinction of Eminent Speaker to a geochemist at EGU. The distinction will include an invited talk and a 500 personal honorary, as well as an EAG certificate. The lecturer will be presented in the EGU program as EAG Eminent Speaker EAG Booth The EAG booth at EGU has been booked. Copies of the first 2 issues of Perspectives and back issues of Elements will be available. It was agreed to have one kind of promotional items. The council agreed not to organize a social event, as the impact on EAG visibility is limited compared to the cost of the event. Action: Marie-Aude to organize material for the booth at EGU. 1.5 Geochemical Perspectives The first issue is currently being received by the EAG members and the attendants of Goldschmidt 2011 who provided their address copies were printed and 300 copies were set aside for the EAG booth at EGU

3 and Goldschmidt A video presentation was also made by Juan Diego Rodriguez Blanco and included in the EAG January newsletter. The second issue, written by Wally Broecker, is currently in preparation. The third issue will be written by either Bruce Yardley or Gordon Brown or Bjorn Jamtveit. As much as possible, the editorial will try to have the third issue ready for Goldschmidt in Montreal. Other confirmed authors are Fred MacKenzie, Charlie Langmuir, Judith McKenzie, Joe Cann, Terry Seward and Henry Dick. 1.6 EAG Blog The EAG Blog is being finalized and is scheduled to be launched end of February Posts will be written by a team of permanent bloggers and the public will also be able to submit posts via . Action: Blog team to finalize the blog design and content. 1.7 Short course series Report from short course on mass-spectrometry The short course organised in January by Tim Elliott and Dan Condon was very successful and welcomed 26 external participants. The EAG provided a financial contribution Request for financial support from Andreas Kappler for another short course on Tools in environmental biogeochemistry The council agreed to contribute to the organization of Andreas Kappler s short course, but will also sponsor another pre-goldschmidt short course based in Florence. Hence funds will be divided between both short courses. Action: Bernard Bourdon to inform Andreas Kappler. 1.8 Distinguished Lecture Program Lecturer for Central/Eastern European Tour The council suggested Tim Elliott as potential lecturer for the 2012 Distinguished Lecture Tour in Central Europe. Bernard Bourdon mentioned that the ENS already has contacts with Romania. Action: Bernard Bourdon to contact Tim Elliott Outreach activities in Africa The Outreach Committee intends to set up a lecture tour of 5 or 6 different African institutions with a lecturer spending 2 days in each university and giving 2 talks. Action: Bernard Bourdon to contact Francis Albarède who is on the Outreach Committee of AGU. PART II: GOLDSCHMIDT CONFERENCES 2.1 Goldschmidt delegates attended Goldschmidt 2011, which included 33% of students.

4 2.2 Goldschmidt 2012 Carla Koretsky is still chairing the Travel Grants Review Committee and the link to apply for travel grants is now available on the GS website (application deadline is 8 February). Also, Marie-Aude reported that the awards, medals and talks, will be presented in the sessions. 2.3 Goldschmidt 2013 Most of the theme teams are finalized and those which are still incomplete will need to be finalized by end of January. The theme teams will then need to provide a list of 6-8 sessions, their description and potential conveners by the end of April. The call for sessions is scheduled for August Goldschmidt 2015 Paul Beattie had considered about 15 different locations and had retained as 4 possible venues: Nice, Glasgow, Lyon and Prague. A major issue with Nice is expensive accommodation and lack of local convener, and after visiting the conference centres in Glasgow and Lyon, those appeared to be too small. Feedback on Goldschmidt 2011 in Prague was very positive. Several improvements were proposed to address the main issues of Goldschmidt 2011: the space on the ground floor will be used for posters, sound-proof partitions will be provided to make suitable sizes of lecture halls, and the problem with internet will be fixed. Finally Prague has the advantage of being a cheap destination. After discussion, the council voted for Prague as the location for Goldschmidt PART III: REPORTS 3.1 Report from the Business Office (Marie-Aude Hulshoff) The ongoing activities of the Business Office include: monthly newsletters publication website updates Facebook posts, Tweets awards administration Monthly EAG council meetings and Geochemical Perspectives editorial board meetings organization Elements articles preparation mailing lists updates (newsletter and Geochemical Perspectives mailing lists) In addition, over the last six months, Marie-Aude has worked on setting up the council elections, creating the EAG Blog, upgrading the website homepage and liaising with institutions involved in the Distinguished Lecture Program. She has also taken on the editorial management of Geochemical Perspectives. Key metrics on EAG website: Average number of visits / month in 2011 is each newsletter generates about 380 visits within 3 days there has been over 2200 views of the 21 video interviews 66% of our visitors are from Europe, 19% from Americas, 10% from Asia, 4% from Oceania and 1% from Africa

5 3.2 Report from the Communication Committee (Liane Benning) The EAG is now entitled to publishing 10 pages per year in Elements (8 were published in 2011). In each issue of Elements, the EAG page will include a President s Corner and a comic strip (developed by Rob Raiswell and designed by Bob Brighton). The question of opening up the EAG website and/or newsletters to advertisers was also raised. All agreed that in the future, we could open the newsletter to advertisers, but not the website. Action: Marie-Aude to investigate a newsletter template which can be suitable for advertisement.